


something's got to give

by Lightning of Farosh (Medea_Nunc_Sum)



Series: Tales of Burning Golden Flowers [2]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Found Family, Gen, Hyrule-Centric, Injury, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Magic, Positive Hyrule Fic, Smart Hyrule
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24244579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medea_Nunc_Sum/pseuds/Lightning%20of%20Farosh
Summary: Having a stable so close to a monster camp should have been the first sign that something was going to go wrong.The second was Hyrule deciding to do some sight seeing.Nothing ever went right when he was sight seeing.
Relationships: Hyrule & Time (Linked Universe)
Series: Tales of Burning Golden Flowers [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605289
Comments: 19
Kudos: 143





	something's got to give

Grey fog swallowed the bottom of the Tanagar canyon, hiding the bottom from view and climbing up the sides of the Tabantha cliffs. Mushrooms peeked out from the crevices in the rock and were distant splatters of shadows against the brown. Hyrule traced their distant cracks, drawing a map in his own mind that would take him from the base to the snow covered tops. There was a fond, distant smile on his lips as he thought back to the mountainside he had scurried up during his youth.

Wild said that _his_ Spectacle Rock was on the other side of this world. It marked the edge of the Gerudo desert instead of sitting in the throes of Death Mountain (and wasn’t that odd? How time could change so much of the land.) so, _perhaps_ , these were the rocks Hyrule had scoured for the missing pieces of the Triforce and Ganon’s hidden lair.

Maybe there was a cave system hidden behind the walls—one as intricate and as puzzling as the one in _his_ lands.

Maybe, when the others were asleep, he could sneak off and explore on his own. He looked back at the fence and the massive, wooden horse head. There was the volcano in the far distance, glowing rivers of orange marking its silhouette against the horizon, and the tallest point of the castle peeking over the tops of the hills.

Some aching part of his soul didn’t want to go back just yet. It dug its feet into the soil, lifted its head up to the sky as the sun set behind lifted mountain tops, and stretched with a pleased little hum.

 _Just a little longer_ , Hyrule thought as he sat in the grass. The others would come find him if they needed anything.

A dragonfly darted past his nose, the red wings glittering like gems in the fading light. It was chasing shadows, finding a place to settle in as evening draped across the world.

Warriors came to fetch him not long after, chatting and laughing as they walked back to the fire. Hyrule smiled and nodded while his thoughts and eyes drifting towards the wall of pines.

Or, rather, the cliffs that waited behind them.

There was food, but he couldn’t really tell anyone what was in it or how it tasted and there was conversation, but he didn’t really pay attention to it.

The bowls were collected and washed and put away. Sky pulled out his harp and played a slow, soft tune as Wind waved his hands, telling a story to a grinning, laughing Legend.

One by one the hours passed.

One by one the others retired, slipping away to sleep on borrowed beds.

Hyrule stayed by the dwindling fire and watched the sparks flutter up towards the sky until they, too, became stars.

A limbo settled over the stable that only came with the later hours of the evening. It was a world that only existed between awake and dreaming. There was very little that couldn’t be fixed with a small burning fire and the cool night air.

The rumbling beast in Hyrule’s chest settled ever so slightly, content with being alone. Horses snorted in the stalls, unconcerned with the wind as it rustled the tops of the pines. Crickets sang their tunes and a couple of frogs joined in on the chorus.

Lantern flames burned low and, when he was sure that the others wouldn’t wander back out for things they had forgotten, Hyrule stood up. He brushed the dirt off his trousers, readjusted his sword across his back, and stomped the fire down. It crackled in protest but died easily enough, leaving just the small lanterns at the entrance of the stable, the sliver of moonlight, and the winking stars to light his path.

A dog barked and trotted behind him, weaving around his hip as it headed towards the other side of the building.

Hyrule watched it go before climbing up the fence and dropping down on the other side. Silver grass swayed before him. It was a sea of life between the trees and the rock of the cliffs. He dragged his fingers through the bladed tips until they were too short for him to bother.

The cliffs of Tabantha were still there, still waiting. They dared him to cross the chasm and look for secrets in their walls. Hyrule sat on the outcropping that stretched out into nothing and stared down between his knees.

Pillars stood, tall but lopsided. Images that were nothing more than twisted shapes due to darkness, distance, and time were carved across their surface. He swung his legs back and forth, heels knocking against the stone with light _tap, tap, taps_.

The wind rustled the grass. One of the mountain goats not too far from where he sat snorted and trotted further away.

“A bit late for sightseeing,” Time said, sitting down beside him. His armour had been left behind, leaving him in just his tunic, trousers, and a pair of muddied boots. Silver moonlight avoided his gold-spun hair, leaving it in shadow as if to apologize.

Hyrule shrugged, unconcerned and unembarrassed. Folding his hands in his lap, he eyed the odd building half buried in stone to the west. There was an opening high upon the front, broken open after years of abandonment and possible looters. “Do you know what that is?” He said, nodding in its direction.

Time leaned over, looking past him to the ruins. “No,” he said, “I didn't ask.”

Hyrule fought the urge to sigh and went back to kicking his feet. Maybe, if he asked nicely and had a good enough bribe, Wind would let him borrow his telescope.

“ _You_ could ask,” Time's voice cut through his plans of finding something shiny that would be enough to parlay with a pirate.

“What?”

“Wild,” Time said. He was looking forward, casing the rocky outcrops on the other side of the canyon. “I'm sure he'd be willing to tell you what it is and what's in it.”

The wind picked up again and trees groaned behind them with the rippling waves of grass. A cricket darted from beneath a leaf, hopping onto Hyrule's leg before deciding that there was nothing for it there.

He watched it go, making no move to capture it, until long, dark shadows swallowed it whole. That curled, part of himself that craved being alone wondered where that dragonfly had gone, wondered why Time wasn’t asleep with the others, wondered, wondered, _wondered._

“I could,” Hyrule said. He turned to look up at Time, “but where's the fun in that?”

There was something past the older hero. Two sharp, piercing, glowing green orbs that winked between the swaying blades of grass.

Hyrule blinked and they were gone.

“What is it?” Time turned, looking over the sea of swaying, silver grass. Ruins sat in the distance; the shattered remains of stone buildings that had been broken apart by what could have been the calamity or something even earlier.

“Not sure,” Hyrule said, choosing his words with deliberate slowness, reaching for the pommel of his sword. “It could be nothing.”

Wild had said that monsters rarely came near the stables.

 _There's always a first time for everything,_ Hyrule thought, scouring the plains for that same, green glow.

It flickered into existence once more, closer now, and buzzed in slow, lazy circles. Others formed around it in a sluggish, ever moving nebula of insect-stars.

“Fireflies,” Time said, his voice soft so it wouldn't disturb the night song drifting around them. “They're harmless. For the most part.”

Hyrule released his sword but kept his palm on the hilt. He watched in silence as the bugs darted between the tree trunks, drifted over branches, and vanished into pine needles only to reappear someplace else. Such a simple bit of existence—a sliver of magic—that came to life when so many couldn't see it.

The green he had seen before had been more piercing, more jagged, and hadn't glowed so brightly, but perhaps it had simply been shaped by the plants. By his imagination. By their flicker of existence and his paranoia.

“Sorry,” Hyrule dropped his hand back to his lap and offered Time a small, sheepish grin. “Just jumpy, I suppose.”

“No need to apologize,” the taller hero said. “Those are good instincts to—”

Bone met flesh, crunching into Time's side. Hyrule yelped as the weight of the man slammed into him.

They rolled—a tangle of limbs and startled cries—and hit just _enough_ of an incline before the edge that they didn’t go tumbling over the cliff.

Knees aching, back throbbing, Hyrule wrestled his sword from its sheath as a knee pressed against his stomach and stabbed out blindly.

There was a hissing, spitting snarl and talons clacked against rock, dancing away from his swing.

Time’s breath whistled against Hyrule’s shoulder, but his hands were careful to avoid pushing down on anything other than rock as he lurched, unsteadily, to his feet. For a second he was suspended, the moon creating a small, silver halo around the back of his head—

But he caught his balance and turned to whatever had attacked them.

Without a weapon. Without _armour_.

Hyrule braced most of his weight on his sword while he shoved himself to his feet—

And ducked down again to avoid the massive, bone club that hissed inches over his head. Rock caught his palms, his knees, scraping long pink lines across his skin.

Beside him, Time jerked backwards, crimson blossoming across his side. There was sweat dotting his face, rolling down his jaw and dripping off his chin. 

The tip of the bone club caught on the curve of his white shirt and ripped through the fabric.

“You,” Hyrule tried to say, bracing his feet and hoisting up his sword. The rubies glittered, throbbing in time with the blood roaring in his ears. “ _You_.”

A silver Lizalfos crouched before them, green eyes gleaming in the darkness. Dark, purple stripes along its back pulsed, beating in time with Hyrule’s racing heart.

It lifted the club up for another swing.

Pushing forward, Hyrule used the momentum to thrust and bring himself to his feet at the same time. The Lizalfos leapt back with a hiss, watching the tip of the Magical Sword as it guarded the distance between itself and its not-so-easy prey.

Daring a glance over his shoulder, Hyrule took in Time's hunched form. The older hero had an arm wrapped around his ribs, a hand pressed to his side, and his features had paled to the point that the moonlight was more warm and full of life.

A hard glare had settled on the old man's face. It spoke of death.

Hyrule bit his bottom lip. He shifted his weight from side to side.

The world was quiet. Still. He breathed in.

Silence was safety.

But there was so much more on the line than his safety.

“Hey!” Hyrule cried, his voice slicing through the silence, cutting off insects and ripping through every single desperate instinct he had.

The horses at the stable startled awake, neighing and pawing at the ground.

A deep, furious hiss gurgled up through a reptilian throat.

“Hey!” He shouted as the wind picked up beneath his feet. “Wake up! Wake _up_!” 

Light flickered to life in the stable, voices rising as people were torn from their slumber. A pair of hooves hit something soft and fleshy, the cracking of bone echoing across the plains followed by the pig-squeal of a Bokoblin.

The Lizalfos' head turned slowly from the rising cacophony, bared teeth and narrowed eyes focused entirely on a mousey teenager with a long, gleaming sword.

Hyrule widened his stance, held his blade with both hands, and smiled. “Not part of the plan, then?” He said, nodding towards the growing sound of clashing steel.

A snarl answered him. It was full of hate, full of hunger.

Blazing red-hot light settled across the grass. It ignited the blade of the Magic Sword and Hyrule flinched away, thinking, perhaps, he had used a spell without meaning to—

He looked up and there was a dragon soaring into the canyon. Fire blazed around its curled horns as it arched and dove deeper, unconcerned by the chaos that had sparked during its flight. Orange and yellow swallowed the darkness, chasing away the night with the comforting heat of true power.

The Lizalfos bared curved, pointed white teeth. It hoisted the club up with a heave and swung with more rage than aim. Hyrule jumped back as it over swung and used the same momentum buzzing in the soles of his feet to push into another, desperate lunge. Back and forth they danced; Hyrule trying to get the monster away in order to give Time a chance to get back to the stable, and the Lizalfos to force the teenager closer to the cliff.

Dirt clung to Hyrule's legs and pebbles bit into his skin as he rolled underneath another swing. The lizard refused to budge, pushing forward despite the small bit of black blood oozing from shallow, stinging wounds. Sweat stuck brown hair to skin, silver slipped in a slick palm, but Hyrule tightened his grip, gritted his teeth, and ignored the roar of blood in his ears.

 _Just one_ , he thought, jumping over a low swing and rolling to dodge the rainbow-coloured whip of a tongue. _Give me just one opening, you--_

A shadow lurched past Hyrule and Time, hands folded together to create a hammer made of flesh and bone, punched the lizard in the jaw.

It stumbled, dropping its club more from shock than pain, and made an odd, choked sound deep in its chest. Time stumbled back, trying to get out of reach. The crimson had blossomed, stretching from the shadows beneath his arm down to his trousers. He winced as he backed up, hunching to ease the stretch of torn flesh.

Hyrule darted in front of him, guarding them both with the flat of his sword. “Where’d you learn that?”

The Lizalfos shook its head and looked over them with narrowed eyes. Red fire turned its silver scales a faded pink.

“My wife.”

“Oh,” Hyrule tilted his head to the side and thought of the sweet, red-haired woman who had smiled as she showed him bowls of sugar water. “Huh.”

Scales and talons lurched past his nose, crashing into flesh in a tornado of snarling, bestial rage.

“Time!” Hyrule jerked but could do nothing as teeth pierced a shoulder blade, as a cry of pain and fury ripped through Time’s throat, nails clawing as a scaled hide. They spun, they tumbled.

They fell over the edge.

“ _TIME!_ ”

Hyrule scrambled, tripping over his own feet and almost slipping over the cliff as he looked down. His heart pounded in his throat, trying to crawl its way out of his body.

There, some ways below him, managing to hold on to a barely-there foothold, was Time. His teeth were bared in a snarl, single, open eye looking back to the fingers curled around his ankle.

“Get off me!” He cried, voice echoing through the canyon as he kicked, blindly, at the talons digging into his leg.

The Lizalfos hissed, pulling itself up the wall and using the hero as a ladder. Blows rained across its snout and brow as Time’s heel scraped against scales and horns. One, glancing kick nailed the creature just above the eye and it snapped forward, closing sharp jaws around a meaty, unprotected thigh.

Time howled, side scraping against stone.

His grip faltered for one heart stopping second.

 _Farore_ , Hyrule prayed, pointing the tip of his blade downward and holding the pommel with both hands. He looked to the sky and found the constellation of storms. Fire light danced across his face and he breathed it in, remembering ash and the burn of the Triforce as it had settled in his skin. _Please grant me the luck not to die from my own stupidity._

The dragon twisted and balls of flame danced across its white, ember-like scales.

With one last, trembling breath, Hyrule jumped.

Wind snapped and snarled in his ears, whipping past his face and whistling around the edges of his sword. Time looked up, eye widening, the tattoos on his skin dark against his moon-pale face.

For a moment, Hyrule was Death itself, hovering in the air with blood throbbing through his arms and made out of ancient, ragged souls.

And then he was a boy, falling in the grasp of gravity, hitting bone and scale and flesh hard enough to buck him like a horse. He held on with white, limestone fingers, jerked forward and knocked back as the Lizalfos screeched in his ear.

He had missed the massive, crocodile head and pierced the shoulder instead. Nerves dead, muscle carved open, it couldn't hold on and slid down—boy and sword included—the small out cropping.

Bracing his feet against the monster’s snapping lower jaw and chest, Hyrule pushed as hard as he could to wrench his sword free. The force sent the Lizalfos screeching onwards, over the edge, and towards its demise.

Above them, the dragon continued on, unbothered by the moment that had passed beneath it.

Hyrule watched it go. The stone beneath him was slick in black, oil blood and the edges of rain-smoothed stone couldn’t stop him as he inched closer and closer to the drop.

Fingers closed around Hyrule’s collar, yanking him upwards.

“Got ya, kid,” Time said above him, words shaped by the strain of his teeth and the grunt in his chest. “Hold on— _hold on_ —”

Looking up, hair plastered to his forehead, Hyrule saw the pained line to Time's jaw, the etching of agony in the corners of his eyes. His gaze roved even further, up pulsing, trembling muscles to sliding fingers.

_So much pain._

Steel clattered against rock as Hyrule tried to slide the Magic Sword back into its sheath. “Let me go,” he said. Calmness washed through him, magic bubbling in his chest like boiling water. “Time— _please_ —you have to let me go.”

“I'm _not_ —”

Hyrule reached up and pressed the tips of his fingers against Time's wrist. He hoped it was comforting in some way even though he knew they'd see each other again. “You have to,” his voice was soft. “You can't hold both of us.”

“Yes. I. _Can_.” Time looked up at his hand, teeth bared, daring it to let go.

Gravity, in a playful tease of goddesses and mortality, tugged just a little harder.

Hyrule watched Time's fingers tremble. “It's okay,” he said, “It's okay, Time; I'll be okay. But you have to let go.”

There was no answer. Time closed his eyes and braced his forehead against his bicep, murmuring words under his breath that might have been a prayed to the goddesses or an apology to his wife.

But he held on.

Hyrule turned his eyes to the heavens, breathed in, and threw his sword to the side. He heard it drop into the darkness, clanging as it fell. It had broken through stone before; the canyon wouldn't harm it.

_Curse stubborn old men._

Both hands free, he turned as well as he could, reaching to grasp Time's wrist just as sweat slicked skin faltered, fumbled, and slipped over the edge of the foothold.

“Shit--!”

Hyrule jerked upwards, clawing to Time's shoulders, wrapped his arms around the older hero's neck, and focused on every single ounce of power that dwelled beneath his skin. It roared around him, spinning like water and crackling like lightning.

“ _Shield_.”

Magic crackled to life around them, drenching their flesh and expanding outwards as they slipped over the rock. It snapped like a rubber band as they hit the next outcropping and Time gasped against his shoulder from the impact.

Hyrule felt his stomach slip into his lungs as they fell, fell, _fell_ —

And hit the earth below.

The spell dispersed with flickers of star dust, rocks grinding into his spine. Hyrule waited until the world had stopped trying to flip him over like a fried piece of meat before lifting his head. “Time?”

There was a groan beside him.

 _Alive_. Good. Collapsing back into the dirt, Hyrule pressed his palms against his eyes. Despite the fact that his sword was now somewhere and the rest of his things were back at the stable, the bottom of the canyon didn't seem like the worst place to be.

He'd been to worse, after all.

A weak, snipping, broken snarl came from his left and Hyrule rolled his eyes because of course the stupid lizard survived. Of fucking _course_ it did.

He turned his head and saw the broken, bloodied silver Lizalfos—one arm ripped away—stumbling to its feet.

Glowing green eyes stared past Hyrule towards Time's limp form. The broken, mangled jaw opened as it readied the blackened, curled tongue—

Hyrule forced his legs to move, for his arms to push his too-heavy body up. Scraped, bleeding fingers found a rock and closed around it, hoisting it upwards as he stood.

_There was a different time in his life where a fire burned in his belly and there had been no swords; just a shield, a rock, and his own stupid willingness to defend an old woman from monsters._

The Lizalfos couldn't put up much of an _anything_ as Hyrule slammed into it. They went down together, the monster gurgling and choking on its own tongue as rock was slammed into its head again and again and _again_ until no breath passed through its throat.

Hyrule sat above its unmoving body, chest heaving. There was a splatter of black across his face and chest. It burned like tiny pinpricks of acid against his skin. Sniffing, he tossed the bloodied rock to the side and crawled his way back over to Time.

The older hero’s breath was shallow, but there, and it looked as though his injuries had only been jostled by their plummet. One, good eye opened, watching Hyrule as he pulled up the red stained tunic.

“How bad is it?”

Hyrule grimaced at the spreading, purple flesh and broken skin. There was a good amount of blood along the skin. It had smeared across abdominal muscles like a child’s finger painting.

“You're an idiot,” Hyrule said, checking over Time's thigh next. “Everyone says Wild is the idiot but no, it's you. You're the idiot.”

Time laughed and choked and grinned, though it was gritted in pain. “Wasn't going to let you fight alone.”

“Shut up,” Hyrule grumbled. “You're as bad as Legend.”

“Impossible.”

“ _Shhh_.”

Hyrule straightened his back, closed his eyes, and breathed in. _Lady of life, Goddess of Courage, I ask for your rain and your hand._

His magic welled up once more, swirling with faint, green light around his fingers. Life spilled from him, dripping into Time's wounds and swirling around battered flesh. It stitched muscle together, snapped bones back where they belonged, and sealed the wound.

The spell took all that he had and Hyrule sagged forward once it was done. Warm, gentle hands caught him when he fell and a tired sigh dropped from his lips.

The stars glittered above them. He wanted to count them one by one but his eyes were too heavy. Curling up, Hyrule sighed and let his eyes drift shut.

“You use magic,” Time breathed above him, words drifting over his brow.

Ah, right. He hadn't told them. “Surprise,” Hyrule tried to say. The letters ended up muddled and braided together to barely form a coherent sound. “It's a secret. Shhh.”

“Well,” Time said, hoisting the smaller hero up just enough so he could lie across the older hero's chest. That was warm and cosy. If Time decided not to wield a sword anymore he could make a pretty good living as a pillow. “Thank you. I'm honoured.”

“Don't—” Hyrule yawned, “—do it again.”

Time chuckled and the sound vibrated comfortably through his chest. “No promises.”

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this fic two months ago. i'm still not fully happy with it? but that's okay.


End file.
